We're Not In Hogwarts Anymore
by Lor-tan
Summary: Luna visits Oz


To begin with, Luna's life was generally extraordinary. And not in the extra ordinary way, that it was too normal, but rather in the way that it was the exact opposite of what everyone else seemed to think ordinary was, and instead exactly what Luna would have expected.

So, extraordinary as her life generally was, it came only as a slight surprise that she went to sleep late one night after breaking curfew to look for Nargles; there'd been an awful lot of them lately, and she wanted to find out why. She hadn't been caught, of course; she never was. She suspected it had something to do with Chti covering her footsteps. Instead of the Ravenclaw dormitory, however, she woke up in a strange bed in a strange house.

It was a Muggle house, she thought, as she sat up and took a dreamy look around. There was rather beautiful old wallpaper coating the walls, old wood furniture, closed curtains, and a little, brightly-coloured Crumple-Horned Snorkack sitting at the foot of her quilt-covered bed. 'Toto' the little daisy-shaped name tag read on his studded leather collar. She decided he must be one of the smaller breeds.

"Well, Toto," she sighed, taking another look around before slowly getting out of bed. She stood there for a moment, contemplating, before she sighed again and reached out to grab him. He let her, and he fit rather nicely into her tiny, thin arms. "I guess we're not in Hogwarts anymore. Or at least, not any part of it that I've been before," she said matter-of-factly, and then turned and flounced away from the bed to explore.

The entire house was populated in a similar manner to the bedroom, with darling old wallpaper, antique furniture, and ugly paintings of flowers and cottages on the walls. The kitchen smelled like stale crackers and freshly-baked cookies. She took a bowl from the cupboard and tried the tap to get Toto some water, but nothing came out, so she gracefully accepted defeat and headed back into the rest of the house.

When she found the front door and pushed it open, she was greeted by a creature that rather reminded her of a very brightly and fancily dressed house elf with hair. Or rather, she was greeted by several hundred of them, all staring up at her as she let the door swing shut with a snap behind her. She blinked slowly at them, wondering if perhaps the elves had finally taken over the world while she slept and remade it in their own inner image.

"You crushed her," one particularly tiny elf said bluntly and with surprisingly articulate speech.

Luna had never seen a baby house-elf before, but if she were to be entirely honest, she thought it was a shame they had to grow up if they looked so cute when they were younger. It was a rude thought, but the full-grown ones weren't very endearing appearance-wise.

"Did I?" she asked, blinking again, and gave them all a tentative smile. "I'm sorry. I know how to fix noses, but I'm not sure if I could do the whole thing."

However, before any of the frill-clad house-elf creatures could respond, a giant pink bubble appeared and started floating gently closer, and all eyes were instead focused on it instead of Luna. Indeed, Luna herself watched it with mild curiosity as it came closer and closer, bobbing up and down like bubbles of trapped pixies. She didn't much like trapped pixies; she thought the practice was rather cruel, but they were, admittedly, quite pretty.

When the bubble finally came to a stop over the crowd of elves, who had cleared a spot beneath it, and were muttering something about "Glinda, it's Glinda!" it popped. Its pink sides melted away in a shower of sparkles, causing Toto to make a grunting noise in her arms and snuffle deeper into her star-spangled sweater. Replacing the bubble now stood a tall, fair woman in a huge, pale, sunset-coloured dress that reminded Luna fondly of Dumbledore. It looked like just the sort of thing the old headmaster might wear if ever given the chance, and the woman's eyes twinkled in the same sweet, wise, slightly manipulative way. She turned, arms graceful, and started to speak.

"Wel—wait, who're you?" the woman, apparently Glinda, abruptly interrupted herself, giving Luna a faintly confused look. "You're not who I was expecting!"

"I'm Luna. But you can call me whatever you like," Luna said, at the same time as an elf said, "She crushed her!" somewhat excitedly, and waved his tiny handful of purple flowers to just past Luna.

She turned around to see what they were talking about. There, peeking out from beneath the edge of the house she'd come out of, were a pair of black and white striped stockings tipped by a pair of sequined red shoes.

"Oh. So that's what you meant," she said, and the surprisingly hairy elves all nodded enthusiastically.

The woman in pink looked dismayed for a few moments more before she apparently became resigned to her fate and let a sweet smile drift right back onto her beautiful face.

"Indeed, little girl! I don't recognise you, you know, or your home. Did you fly it here? If you did, that must mean you're a witch." Luna nodded. "Oh, you are! Well, are you a good witch, or a bad witch, then?" she asked, and Luna blinked up at her dreamily.

"I hope I'm a bit of both, just like everyone else. My name's Luna, but you can call me Looney if you want to. Everyone else does," she said, before remembering that Toto was in her arms. "Oh, and this is my Crumple-Horned Snorkack, Toto. I just got him five minutes ago, but we're already the bestest of friends." She attempted to reach around his horn to pet him, but it was a bit awkward and he didn't look very impressed by the effort.

"I see... Well, Luna, thank you for saving the Munchkins from the Wicked Witch of the East. They've been living under her evil tyranny for a very long time," Glinda said sweetly, and the elves—Munchkins, her brain supplied; they must have been a new species—cheered in emphasis.

As Luna stared around at the cheering Munchkins—no one had ever cheered for her before—time seemed to speed up. She focused on the smiling faces as they sang a strange song (it did have a catchy tune), the pair of shiny red shoes were transferred from the crushed remains of the witch under the building to her own previously bare feet, and a green-skinned woman who dressed similarly to professor McGonagall appeared and went through a very messy grieving process before demanding to have what were apparently her sister's shoes. Luna thought that this seemed like a very reasonable request, but Glinda threatened to drop a house on her. This brought to mind the possibility that Glinda was the one who'd dropped the house on the first witch, and maybe that she was in cahoots with Cornelius Fudge.

It all seemed to fly in a blur—had the Nargles infected this world, too?—until Glinda turned to her, her eyes twinkling like mad. "I imagine you'll be looking for a way home then?" she said.

Now, really, this hit Luna on a bit of a blindside. She hadn't really thought of that, but now that she was, she supposed that she rather would like to get back to Hogwarts. Flitwick would be worrying, and her father was expecting a letter. Plus...

"I guess I would like to get back before it's too late. They're supposed to have trifle tonight at dinner, and the elves at Hogwarts are really good at making trifle. Do you have any idea how to get there?" she asked.

Glinda smiled; it was a bit creepy now that Luna knew the truth about her and her association with the goblin pie conspiracy. "It's always best to start at the beginning; all you do is follow the Yellow Brick Road," she instructed, and pointed to the spot beneath where Luna currently stood, where indeed a painted yellow brick road spiralled away.

There didn't seem to be anything better to do, so Luna set Toto down next to her ankles, squared her tiny shoulders, and started skipping. The encouraging cries of the Munchkins rang in her wake and Glinda the Goblin Slayer calling goodbye to her disappearing blonde-shrouded back.

What followed would forever be cemented in the Land of Oz as the singular most strange and delightful spectacle to have ever taken place upon its great and fantastical lands—and this was a world with horses that changed colour at random. There was colour, adventure, self-discovery, a scarecrow nicknamed Ron, a Tinman nicknamed Hermione, and a cowardly lion who later legally changed his name to Neville. By the end of the whole confusing but ultimately positive fiasco, the Wicked Witch of the West had realised that her entire grudge against Luna for getting her sister's shoes was just her transferring personal issues and the anger stage of grief onto someone other than herself. The Great Wizard Luna met had decided to give up his current lifestyle and become a researcher of the rare and obscure "horse of a single colour," and Glinda the Goblin Slayer reappeared only to tell Luna that she'd always had the power to get home, and had only needed to learn it for herself.

Luna, of course, already knew that, but she nodded politely anyways, and obediently closed her eyes, held Toto close, and clicked her shoes together.

When she opened them, she was in a strange bed—deja vu, she thought—in the hospital wing, and several adults were standing over her, including Madam Pomfrey, Flitwick, and the Headmaster. Well, Flitwick wasn't really standing over her, but she tried not to hold that against him.

"Is this my home? Well, I suppose it's as good as any other," she told them.

Madam Pomfrey clicked her tongue, cast a few spells, and whispered something to Headmaster Dumbledore before bustling off to take care of Neville, who sat in another bed with odd, purple-coloured lumps growing from his skin.

"Goodness, you had us worried!" Flitwick exclaimed. "What's this about your home?"

This launched a rather long and question-inspiring explanation of her day, as Luna described in great detail the events that had taken place while she'd visited Oz.

Flitwick seemed to believe that it had all just been a dream, but Dumbledore had a knowing twinkle in his eyes that no one, not even Glinda, could imitate.


End file.
